Dabs
Waitrose customer service team finally got back to me mid evening yesterday (Tuesday)
The outcome is, that, yes even though they have been promoting Dabs in their magazine dated 11th August, their fish buyer now says that there won’t be any available until the beginning of September!
Since my blog yesterday, I received emails and messages of support from many contacts, saying that their local supermarkets (not Waitrose!) have Dabs in stock – even a London based fish supplier contacted me asking me how many I needed!
I did call in to Waitrose today, but, of course, no Dabs!
Several phone calls to Waitrose’s local supermarket competitors and each and every one of them said yes, they have Dabs in stock!
A feature in a later Waitrose magazine features an article by Nick Fisher (!) who is fishing advisor to “Hugh’s Fish Fight”, bemoaning the fact that 75% of shellfish caught in the UK is exported, He went on to say that he watched 35 tons of British squid being offloaded at Brixham fish market, but not one Devon retail outlet stocked fresh squid – it was all frozen, imported from the Far East
A brief look around the Waitrose fish counter this morning showed sprats, sardines and Scottish salmon (I should hope so!). But, unfortunately, a great deal of the fish on the counter stated that it was from Iceland, or North Atlantic. With prawns from Madagascar- come on Waitrose support what’s left of our UK fishing fleet and buy and stock more UK caught fish.
Nick Fisher also pointed out a bizarre fact – we export 75% of the fish we catch and import 80% of the fish we eat!
Further research on the Waitrose website and I discover that the elusive Dabs that they may or may not be stocking come from Iceland! Apparently Dab seasonality is virtually year round in UK coastal waters, with an upturn in numbers during September.
So now I know that even though Waitrose support the UK fishing industry, they prefer to stock Icelandic fish rather than UK caught fish so I won’t be buying them now anyway!
The Waitrose customer service colleague also said that the company buyer was having difficulty obtain a supply of Dabs. I work in the hospitality industry and it took me less than 30 minutes to find a commercial supplier in the UK who can get British Dabs, so, Waitrose! I challenge you to either find some British Dabs to stock, or find a better fish buyer for your company!!
Dear Andy
I’m the specialist fish buyer for Waitrose. I read your blog post with interest so thought I’d explain the situation in full.
The reason we don’t stock British dabs is because the majority are beam trawled. We have banned beam trawled fish for a number of years, because of the potential damage it causes to the marine environment, meaning it doesn’t fit with our strict Responsible Fish Sourcing Policy.
Our policy for wild fish covers four areas: it must not be a species regarded as endangered or under threat; must be caught from well-managed fisheries; caught using responsible fishing methods, and be fully traceable from catch to consumer. Similarly farmed fish must be from responsible farms (we buy no fish on the open market).
So instead we source dabs from Iceland – where they are caught using methods that meet our policy. In addition to this, Iceland also has catch quotas in place for dabs, which we think is very important, because many of the lesser-known species previously regarded as by-catch are not currently subject to any management processes so could quite easily become over-exploited themselves if the right steps aren’t taken.
It is for this reason that our stock levels haven’t been very consistent lately – because the Icelandic quota system runs from 1st Sep – 31st Aug, meaning many fishermen are using up their 2010/11 quotas, leading to sporadic supply. And we’re simply not willing to source fish on the open market, as we couldn’t ensure it would meet our policies. However our availability of dabs will improve at the start of the new quota season (1st Sep). And in the mean-time we have a good supply of frozen dabs available.
Our policy at Waitrose is to always buy British where we can, and we have an industry-leading approach to supporting home-sourced food. We have been a supporter of the British fishing industry for many years and at present about 50% of the fish we sell is either caught or farmed in British waters.
But – especially in the case of seafood – this needs to be balanced against a number of other, equally important factors. Sourcing from Iceland is an example of this – in addition to dabs, we source all our cod, haddock and whiting from Iceland, having moved out of the North Sea fishery in 1999. We saw North Sea stocks declining so we made the decision to take that step. Iceland has a leading approach to responsible fish sourcing – it is illegal to discard fish in the country. Their forward-thinking approach also meant we were able to work with our suppliers to go entirely line caught for this fish, a massive step at the time that simply would not have been possible otherwise.
I’ve been the fish buyer at Waitrose for over 15 years, and during that time we have constantly evolved our responsible fish policies, taking many big and often difficult decisions along the way. When we started out there just was not and is still not enough fish that has been independently certified as sustainable. So we started work applying common sense principles, welcoming input from NGOs, contributing to the appreciation some NGOs have of the issues and engaging with the industry. The scope of our policy continues to evolve to this day.
We will continue to evolve our policies, and as part of this we work to encourage our customers to eat a wider variety of fish, such as dabs, pollack and whiting. Our fish counter specialists raise customers’ awareness of different varieties to inspire them to buy and try less familiar fish. We also run a Catch of the Day promotion that offers reduced prices, for example a third off, on the less popular fish.
I hope this has helped explain the situation – sorry the information wasn’t more readily available to you when you were trying to get hold of it. And I definitely recommend that you do try our dabs – we think they’re some of the finest available and are a fantastic and great value fish.
Kind regards
Jeremy Langley
Dear Jeremy,
Thankyou for your comprehensive response, I have replied direct to you by email